Choropleth Map:

This map includes weight information collected from students who were in two grade levels: ELEMENTARY or MIDDLE/HIGH. They came from 58 counties in the New York State, while New York City was excluded from the data. The percent of students who were overweight or obese and the percent of students who maintained a healthy weight were selected as indicator variables to represent the student’s weight situation in the corresponding counties. Since data was collected over a 9-years-period, an average of the selected percentages was taken and mapped.
The average percentage of students who were overweight or obese across 9 years and 58 New York counties were mapped in red. The darker the red color, the larger percentage of overweight or obese students can be found in the county. The average percentage of students who maintained healthy weight were mapped in blue, where the darker the blue color, the larger percentage of students in the county maintained a healthy weight.


Overall, on average, there were higher percentage of students who maintained a healthy weight across the 58 counties, and the two maps echo each other nicely. However, there are a few exceptions. Take HAMILTON as an example, it is colored as deep red and deep blue at the same time, which means it not only exhibits high average percentage of overweight or obesity but also has high average percentage of students with healthy weight.

Hamilton

To explore the reason why HAMILTON was colored in darker colors in both choropleth maps, HAMILTON was separated from the original collective data and analyzed independently. We found that as time goes by, students’ weight in HAMILTON exhibited an increasing trend. As one of the healthiest counties with less than 20% of overweight/obese students, HAMILTON’s current situation is very concerning since about 40% of students were classified as overweight or obese by 2019. Students who were obese at the beginning of this study may have maintained to be obese, while students who were originally weighted as healthy gained weight. In total, there were more obese students by the end of the 9-years-period compare to the beginning of the study.


Outlook

Since the choropleth maps used the average percentage, the changing trend of student weight was neglected. Both the average percent of overweight/obese and healthy students were large for HAMILTON. When analyzing all connties in the New York state, even though students’ weight in some counties may have been relatively stable over the 9 years, it is still necessary to take yearly change into consideration.